RUSH: This is Kevin in Brick, New Jersey. Hi, Kevin. It’s great to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I’m huge fan. The question I wanted to ask you is: “Do you think that there’s any chance that the independents might see Darrell Issa as being too aggressive in pursuing the Fast and Furious documents?”
RUSH: Yeah, you know, this is going around. I think this is a technique that’s designed to intimidate Issa into shutting down.
CALLER: Oh. Okay.
RUSH: This was predictable. “Issa is overstepping his bounds! He’s going to upset the independents.” I’ve had it with this upset-the-independents business. If you listen to every one of these theories, the end of it all is that we Republicans had better stop fighting for what we believe or else the independents are gonna get mad. Independents don’t follow the news. I’m not sure the independents know what Fast and Furious is yet.
I’m joking but I’m serious, Kevin. “We can’t criticize Obama! It will irritate the independents!” We can listen to Pelosi, we can listen to Obama, we can listen to Democrats go after us — me and Republican politicians — all day long. That doesn’t upset the independents. Have you ever noticed that hard-hitting criticism of Republicans never bothers the independents? Pursuing so-called Republican excesses — going after Bush, trying to stop the Iraq war, trying to “frog march” Scooter Libby or Karl Rove into jail — that never irritates the independents.
Why if you listen to the Democrats, the independents are nothing more than full-fledged, solid, 100% Democrats! Well if that’s true, why are they independents? I’m sorry, I just don’t buy this. We’ve got a constitutional violation. We’ve got an attorney general who is lying to the elected representatives of the people, and Issa is supposed to dial it back because that might irritate the independents?
This has been a trick that the Democrats and the media have been using my entire life to get Republicans to shut up and stop fighting for what they believe in. And the sad thing is that the moderate Republicans buy into it and believe it, along with a lot of Republican political consultants who get hired to run campaigns of Republican candidates. It is a noose around our neck that we willingly place and then we step to the tree limb.
So, no. It makes no intellectual sense whatever, Kevin.
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Look, this independent stuff. I thought we’d covered it. But apparently some people new to the program. Do you know there’s now a third… we have West Virginia people not going to the Democrat convention, and there are two other states that have high-ranking officials who have now said that they are not gonna attend the Democrat convention, and do you know why? Because they need to stay away from the partisan and toxic Obama. They need the independents in their state. This Joe Manchin, the Democrat, former governor, won the Senate race in West Virginia, and the sitting governor, they want to be reelected. They need the independents and they’re staying away from Obama.
Now, if that’s the case, why in the world would we start telling Darrell Issa, “Hey, pull back, Darrell, pull back, gonna irritate the independents.” Democrats, who want the independents, are staying away from the Democrat convention. Any Republican who buys into this trick that the media is putting out there that the independents are gonna get ticked off if we pursue Holder or Obama — and, by the way, that’s not all that’s gonna happen. Romney’s out there campaigning, and he’s focusing on the economy. The Republican Party is not devoting everything to this EP business. We can multitask out here. We haven’t put everything aside. This is not about getting Obama. It’s not about getting Holder. This is not politics.
Folks, it may come as a surprise to some people, but we really think it’s wrong to run guns from Phoenix gun stores to drug cartels in Mexico where 200-plus Mexicans get killed and a US drug agent, border patrol agent. We don’t think that’s right. We think that’s wrong, and when the people behind the program start lying about trying to cover it up, we don’t agree with that. Nothing’s wrong with wanting to know who’s responsible for it. Nothing at all is wrong with wanting to know. If we’re gonna go after Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, even if they’d be found guilty, big whoop. In the big scheme of things, what does it mean? We’re talking about steroids and stuff. We’re talking about the attorney general who may have lied, did lie to a congressional committee at least twice. The attorney general. The supreme law enforcement officer of the country. If that doesn’t mean anything, then nothing does.
From the Weekly Standard: “In the 39 months that President Obama has held office, party affiliation has swung 10 points against his party. According to RasmussenÂ’s polling, at the end of the month in which Obama took the oath of office (January 2009), Democrats enjoyed an 8-point advantage in party affiliation. … Eleven months later, a few days after the Democratic SenateÂ’s passage of Obamacare on Christmas Eve, the DemocratsÂ’ lead had dropped from 8 points to just 1.5.” And now it’s a full ten-point swing. Throw the independents in there as well, and you have a perfectly good reason not to buy into this junk that Republicans, pursuing their agenda, will irritate the independents.
Folks, in terms of the way people vote, the way people think, liberalism represents max 30%. I just recoil at this assertion that conservatives need to shut up in pursuing their agenda for greatness — American greatness and exceptionalism — because that’s gonna tick off the independents. That’s just absurd, and all it is is a trick, trying to make us feel intimidated to the point of shutting up. Now, look, enough of this Obama business.
Romney’s out there campaigning, he’s at Lake Buena Vista, Florida, today at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, 29th annual conference. Romney’s out there at this Latino convention. We’ve got three sound bites, and I want to hear them. Enough of this Obama business. There is a guy out there running, his name is Romney, and he’s leading in the polls. Here’s the first of our three sound bites.
ROMNEY: Hispanics have been hit disproportionately hard. While the national unemployment is still above 8% and has been for 40 straight months, Hispanic unemployment is at 11%. The middle class under President Obama has been crushed. More Americans are living in poverty today than at any point in American history. Over two million more Hispanics are living in poverty today than the day when President Obama took office. Home values have plunged, our national debt is at record levels, and families are buried under higher prices for things like food and gasoline. And yet the president said the private sector is doing fine.
RUSH: I’m still hitting here thinking about the independents. You know, a lot of independents are people fed up with RINO Republicans. This notion that the independents are a bunch of Democrats in hiding is absurd. A lot of independents are conservatives who are fed up with the GOP establishment and they’ve left the party. This idea that the independents are all just stealth Democrats. Moderates, yes. Independents, it’s a different ball of wax. The moderates, no question, they’re just a bunch of liberal Democrats afraid to say so. But they’re a different ball of wax than the independents. Here’s the second Romney sound bite at the Latino convention.
ROMNEY: Tomorrow President Obama will speak here. He’ll probably say that even though you aren’t better off today than were you four years ago, things could be worse. He’ll imply that you don’t really have an alternative. I believe he’s taking your vote for granted. I’ve come here today with a very simple message: You do have an alternative. Your vote should be respected, and your voice is more important now than ever before. This November, we’re gonna make a choice. We could continue along the path we’re on, or we can choose a better way.
RUSH: And Romney could have said, “I promise not to send guns to Mexican drug cartels to kill Mexican citizens. I promise I won’t do that. I will not send any more guns to Mexico, drug cartels, so that Mexican citizens can remain alive.” And here’s the final Romney sound bite at the Latino convention. It is in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. That’s up at Disney World. It’s up there. Here’s what he said.
ROMNEY: After three-and-a-half years of putting every issue, from loan guarantees, to his donors, to Cash for Clunkers, putting all those things before immigration, now the president has been seized by an overwhelming need to do what he could have done on day one, but didn’t. I think you deserve better. Some people have asked if I will let stand the president’s executive order. The answer is that I will put in place my own long-term solution that will replace and supersede the president’s temporary measure. As president, I won’t settle for stopgap measures. I’ll work with Republicans and Democrats to build a long-term solution.
RUSH: And we will take a brief time-out.